Jamie Dimon Says He Wouldn't Repeat The Bear Stearns 'Favor'

JP
Morgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon has insisted the
bank did the US government a "favour" buying troubled rival
Bear
Stearns and would probably not do something similar again.

Mr Dimon bought Bear Stearns for about $1.5bn in the spring of
March 2008 as the failing bank threatened to unravel America's
financial system.

As part of the deal, the Federal Reserve pledged to take some of
the losses on the $30bn of mortgages that Bear accumulated as
part of an ultimately reckless bet on the US housing market.

"We did them a favour," Mr Dimon said in Washington on Wednesday.
"We were asked to do it and we did it at great risk to
ourselves." The banker estimates that the deal has cost JP Morgan up
to $10bn as it wrote down the value of mortgages Bear owned and
spent money fighting legal cases against the bank.

"Would I have done Bear Stearns again knowing what I know
today?"," said Mr Dimon. "It's really close. Knowing what I know
today, if they called me to do something again like that, I
couldn't do it."

Mr Dimon's comments come as regulators in New York last month
launched a multi-billion lawsuit against JP Morgan, alleging that
Bear misled investors over the sale of mortgage-backed bonds in
the run-up to the financial crisis. JP Morgan has said it will
contest the suit from the New York attorney general's office.

In sharp contrast to 2008, Wall Street has had a smaller profile
in this election as the debate focuses on the broader economy.

However, the regulation of financial services did provide a
flashpoint in the first presidential debate when President Barack
Obama said that the plan by Mitt
Romney, his Republican challenger, to unwind some of the new
rules would threaten another financial crisis.